


Calamity and Triumph

by colls



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_summergen, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:07:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2530079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colls/pseuds/colls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Standing in the cemetery and cradling the bottle of Johnny Walker, Bobby reflects on his friendship with Rufus and his life as a hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calamity and Triumph

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mako_lies (wingeddserpent)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingeddserpent/gifts).



> Written for mako_lies for the prompt _Rufus Turner + Bobby Singer, burying bodies_. Takes place at the end of episode 6x16 after Dean’s speech about giving Sam and Bobby a “blanket apology for all the crap that anybody’s done all the way around [..] a clean slate”. Originally posted [here on spn-summergen](http://spn-summergen.livejournal.com/212262.html)

Sam and Dean wander off, leaving Bobby standing alone at the gravesite his mind drifting between now and then. He thinks of things they’d done, loved ones they mourned, unnatural things they’d killed. 

Friendship, he thinks, can be a funny thing. 

It used to be that Rufus would make frequent stops at Bobby’s on his way from one job to another, availing himself to a clean bed and hot shower. Eventually Rufus would go months without showing up, without calling. Bobby hardly thought of it at all. But when he did show up, or when he did call, it’d be like no time had passed.

Of course, he was usually knee deep in shit and needed Bobby to pull his ass out of trouble. So things were always hectic whenever Rufus is around. Could be the pacing of things made it all feel familiar. Like they’d never really spent any time apart.

They used to work together all the time, practically lived in each other’s pockets. No matter what they were going through these days or what arguments they’d had in the past, Bobby always knew that Rufus was in his corner. Never doubted it for a second.

Bobby and Rufus were familiar with graves - in a cemetery or not. They buried so many bodies over the years that Bobby had lost count. Some they had killed, some they hadn’t been able to save. 

The first body they buried was that of Karen, Bobby’s wife. While Bobby was still in shock, Rufus had calmly explained how things were, what was out there, and how to kill it. Bobby felt a cold sense of resolve settle in his chest, suddenly wishing the world was everything it wasn’t. It was barely a month later when the two of them were burying a chupacabra outside Seattle, rushing to get the job done and get back on the road before the sun came up. 

“That thing was butt ugly,” Bobby said as the pulled away from a McDonald’s drive-through an hour later. 

“Sometimes monsters look like monsters. Sometimes they don’t.” 

“What is this? A candy bar commercial?”

Ignoring him, Rufus unwrapped his breakfast sandwich with one hand, the other steering them back onto the highway. “And did you see it hop? That thing must’ve covered at least eight feet.”

“Ten. And it leapt at me - leapt in a ferocious manner. It didn’t hop, it wasn’t a damned bunny.”

Rufus shook his head, “It hopped. I’ve never seen one actually hop before.”

In the next three states they buried a ragaru, a pair of ghouls and a skinwalker. Digging was hard work, and the labor left an ache in his shoulders that started to feel like the satisfaction of a job well done. 

After decapitating and burying a vampire in Nevada, they spent a few hours in a honky tonk bar in some rundown town that Rufus knew. He said it was frequented by hunters and they could relax. It was exhilarating for Bobby to know there were others like him out there, hunters ridding the world of evil. He wasn’t naive enough to think half the stories he heard that night weren’t exaggerated tales, the kind you boast about in a bar after a few drinks, but he felt a kinship and knew he’d found a place he belonged. 

Rufus has spent the evening in a booth in the back, talking with a grumpy looking old timer who seemed to hate everyone. “Don’t let the job just be about revenge, Singer,” he warned as they headed back to the highway. 

They’d dug up a few graves as well, every hunter has. Ghosts and vengeful spirits are the bread and butter of the job. There was this one time in Wisconsin, Bobby and Rufus were taking turns digging up the body of a math teacher who carved algebraic formulas on students who cheated on their homework. It was February and the ground was hardened making the job even worse. They’d argued for a good thirty minutes about who had lost the second shovel before deciding that it was too late to go find one now and that they’d have to make do. 

“At least it’s snowing,” Rufus said, handing Bobby the shovel and climbing out of the hole. 

“Your idea of a silver lining ain’t normal, you know that?” Bobby grumbled as he jumped down. As he landed, his foot broke through the last couple inches of dirt and cracked the coffin beneath. He lost his balance and landed face first in a pile of frozen grave dirt. Then Rufus shined the flashlight directly in his face, nearly blinding him. Just as Bobby was about to let out a stream of curses Rufus barked out a laugh from somewhere deep in his chest. The sound was so unexpected that Bobby lay there for a moment, mouth gaping.

“You’re getting grave dirt in your mouth,” Rufus said and cracked up again.

Realizing the ridiculousness of their situation - hell, of their life - Bobby joined him, laughed until his face hurt and his side pinched. Rufus sank to his knees, laughing with a lack of inhibition that bordered on wildness. They were drunk with it.

Years later, long after John Winchester’s boys showed up on his doorstep, he understood what Rufus had meant about not letting the job be about revenge. The sense of cold was still there in the pit of his stomach and Bobby would never forget what lead him to this life, but it wasn’t what defined how he hunted. It didn’t consume him. Life was a series of small, seemingly inconsequential moments, any one of them can result in calamity or triumph. Sure, he’d probably die on the job, but he wasn’t driven to do so. He could wish the world were different and sit and complain, or he could figure out a way to do something about it. That was all.

Every time Bobby saw Rufus he was reminded of how his wife died. He knew, after Omaha, that Rufus felt that same sort of painful loss every time he saw Bobby. Other than a weird sort of gallows humor, they shared none of those good times that friendships were supposed to have in the times between. Maybe that’s why Rufus said he wasn’t able to forgive him. Tragedy to tragedy isn’t something that makes a friendship exist, yet there it was. Lots of calamity, but maybe there had been few moments of triumph amongst all they had lost. 

Because of Rufus, Bobby didn’t get tossed into jail for murdering his wife. Because of Rufus, Bobby knows what kind of evils lurk in this world and turns his energy to making it better. He might not be any sort of saint, not by a long shot, but Bobby’s trying. And he’s going to keep on trying because kids like Sam and Dean need someone in their corner the way Rufus was in his. 

Friendship, he thinks, can be a tenacious thing.

Bobby stands alone at the gravesite cradling the bottle of Johnny Walker and considers what Dean had said about blanket apologies and clean slates. Maybe the kid has the right idea. With one last toast to his best friend, Bobby turns and leaves the cemetery.

.end.


End file.
